


The Child of Hamelin

by TigerPrawn



Series: Tiger's Hannigram AU fics [20]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Cannibalism, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Developing Friendships, Fairy Tale Elements, Family Secrets, First Kiss, Getting to Know Each Other, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Character Death, Modern-ish Fairy Tale, Murder, Mystery, References to Hannibal Rising, Revelations, Revenge, Threats of Violence, Town secrets, Wolf Trap is a creepy place to live, becoming, canonical child death (Mischa), cover-up, disappearing children, rodent infestation, threats of violence to a pregnant woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-17 16:02:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13080390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerPrawn/pseuds/TigerPrawn
Summary: Twenty-five years ago sickly kid, Will Graham, was the only child in Wolf Trap not stolen by a mysterious supernatural force. Now grown up, Will is a Deputy Sheriff in the broken town about to be revisited by evil. If he has any hope of saving the town, he must unravel a mystery of murder, revenge and powers beyond his imagination.[Liked this story?][Share on Tumblr]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In the great British tradition of spooky stories at Christmas, this is for #HanniHolidays: Holiday Music (sort of?)
> 
> NB: I'm British, I've got no clue about 1980s small town US beyond movies and have no idea how Sheriffy things work so... just ignore the no doubt glaring mistakes on that front :-/

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/22015927@N07/38286224545/in/dateposted/)

“Show yourself.” Jack Crawford’s voice strained with both fear and anger as he held his gun and torch together, pointed at the treeline. The snow had fallen heavily the day before and there were no fresh tracks that he could see, but there was definitely something at the edge of the woods. 

He didn’t want to be out on a night like this. With the first snow falling there was already enough to do. It would be only a few days more of this rate of snowfall that would cut their town off for the winter. This year the mayor had proposed some measures to keep the high road and bridge out of town clear, but they still needed to prepare for their potential and usual isolation if it didn’t pan out.

With that, the Lecter situation and the recent and destructive infestation of rodents, he had better shit to do than chasing down what was likely a bobcat at most.

The shrubbery rustled and he cocked his gun... then he heard a pitiful voice that was barely more than a quiet sob.

“Sheriff?” 

A small boy staggered from the at the edge of the woods, he was in pyjamas torn by the rough foliage, his skin pale, eyes rimmed so red that it was clear even in the growing darkness of the early evening. His bare feet were muddy and covered in scratches and bruises.

Jack hesitated just a moment before he uncocked and holstered his gun and started forward, picking up speed as he saw the child fall. Jack caught him and cradled the limp and exhausted form as the child struggled to regulate his breathing. His eyes were wide with terror and sadness. 

“Will? Will Graham?” Jack recognised the sickly little kid as that of Bill Graham, local drunk. A quiet kid from what he knew, kept to himself - went to and from school on his own, smaller than most kids his age. He was the kind of kid that Jack always wondered about. Probably just become a drunk like his old man was most people’s thought - he wasn’t expected to do better than the family he came from. But he wasn’t trouble, he was quiet and polite to a fault. The kind of polite that was beat into a kid. 

He was the last person Jack had expected to see out here, alone at the edge of the wood’s whilst he was responding to reports of strange noises that seemed to have the nearest residents terrified. 

“The others.” Will mumbled quietly, shaking in his arms despite being burning hot. The kid seemed sick, maybe from walking in the woods at night in barely a stitch. “I can’t feel them anymore… The music’s gone…”

“Others?”

“The children… the o-other children.” Will’s breath stuttered against a sob. “They’re gone. I couldn’t keep up. He left me behind. He took the music away.” The tears came then and Jack got to his feet, holding the boy to his chest as he carried him back to his vehicle. He had no clue what the hell was going on. His first thought had been that little Will had gotten into his daddy’s liquor, but he didn’t smell of alcohol. 

As Jack got closer to the his truck - the low light of the headlamps and the static, coloured light on the roof lighting the way - he could hear the frantic chatter on his radio. He frowned, making out the voice of the dispatcher as he got closer, feeling his pulse spike as he heard the panic there. 

“Sheriff, please come in. Sheriff!” She was pleading over and over. Jack picked up the pace, opening the door awkwardly and sliding Will gently into the passenger seat before grabbing the CB and standing. The wire strained as he pressed the receiver. 

“This is Crawford.”

“Sheriff, oh god, please you’ve gotta get back here.”

“Ok, ok, slow down. What’s going on?” He looked down at Will who had curled into a ball in the seat, looking like the smallest ten year old in the world at that moment. 

“Jack, the children. They’re all gone.” The words were broken on a sob. 

“What children?” Jack growled, frustrated and confused and not getting answers damn well fast enough. 

“All of them Jack. All the children from the town. They’re all gone Jack. Oh god, they’re all gone… The calls, the parents are… the phone is ringing off the hook. Someone has taken all the children.” The words trailed into sobs and Jack felt a shiver so cold grip him that he couldn’t help the uncharacteristic shudder. He looked down at the boy who curled tighter as he let out a chilling sob. 

**25 Years Later: 1981**

Will rubbed the bridge of his nose as he walked through the cabin, his feet chilled by the bare wooden floor. He made his way to the kitchen, enough time to grab a coffee before he packed Winston into the back of his duty truck and clocked in for the day. 

One of the floorboards creaked loudly as he walked the hallway. Damn loud, getting louder every day. He’d not done much with the place since his dad died. Seemed a little pointless. It wasn’t really, of course, if he planned on keeping the place - which seemed ever more likely. He wanted it to be pointless, he wanted to move out. Sell the place or knock it down. He’d never wanted to come back here after he had moved into his little apartment over the store on the high street, so many years ago now it felt like a dream more than a memory. But when his dad got sick he’d had no one. No one but Will to come back and nurse the miserable asshole as he died slowly - his liver repaying the damage done over the years. 

And Will had just stayed. Letting his apartment go after a few months, and becoming stuck in this dank place full of death. He remembered pulling off all the curtains the day they took his dad to the funeral home, throwing out the half rotted old material that had been up since his mum had left decades earlier. He’d replaced them all now, but for weeks he’d just let the sun into this dark and dead place. He’d got Winston in part to bring some life to it… and to snub his nose at the ghost of his dad. He’d never let Will have a dog, saw them as a needless expense when that money could be spent on booze. He was likely rolling in his grave and Will didn’t remotely give a shit. 

It had been a damn lonely childhood with no friends. He’d had few enough before the entire town’s population under the age of twelve went missing that cold winter’s night. 

So many families moved away after that. They’d closed the school eventually leaving Will and the handful of teens having to attend schools in the next town. A dog might have been nice back then. 

As it was he’d just kept to himself even more than before. No longer just the son of the local drunk, but also the kid - the one. _That one_. That one that got away, as the townsfolk saw it. 

And why him? He could see the question and the anger in the faces of the adults who no longer had children. It was almost like some of them blamed him, or at least hated him for something beyond his control - for being the one left behind instead of their child or children. Why him? Why not one of their kids saved? Why did the quiet little weird kid whose mom walked out and whose dad drank himself into oblivion have to come back and not their precious straight-A kid? 

Will never had to ask himself that because he knew the answer. When the music had started he had tried to follow it, tried to keep up with the other kids. But his dad had been drunk a solid month and Will was malnourished - eeking out the random canned goods in the cupboard. He couldn’t keep up because he just didn’t have the strength. He wondered if that might have been the time he would have finally died of the neglect had the children not been taken - had the Sheriff not taken him to the small community hospital. They had kept him there for two weeks to check him over, feed him up, start getting him well again. 

As soon as he was old enough he’d got his own place, just a rented room at first. It was only once Jack took him under his wing and started mentoring him in the Sheriff’s department that people even gave him the time of day. For a few years now he’d been a well respected member of the community, like people had forgotten the kid he had been - what he represented to them. A disassociation to make life easier, Will could see it. Almost like the town had collectively agreed to suppress anything too upsetting. His mum had always told him he had a special gift for reading people - a talent for empathy - and that was the true test of it. Because it seemed like he always knew the sadness these people were hiding, no matter how hard they tried.

Even so he was accepted. After Hobbs went crazy and Will had to shoot the guy he’d had nothing but support. He’d been on the job less than six months when he responded to the call out. They say he couldn’t handle his wife deciding to leave him, they say he had been going slowly nuts since that night in the woods - their daughter Abigail had been amongst the town’s children. It was damn sad, but if everyone had reacted to the missing kids by trying to slash their wife’s throat there would be a lot of dead folk in the town. 

Will had been shaken up. It had been unexpected and he had never really considered before that he might sometime have to kill someone in the line of duty. But moreover he was shaken by the feeling it gave him - something raw and powerful that he didn’t dare to dissect. 

Jack had rallied around him, given him the support he might need after having to put down a perp. Not that Will had needed it, he found. But the point was, Jack had been there and then so had the town. 

Though by then so many had moved away, and it seemed that everyone remaining had breathed a sigh of relief once he started to really become part of the community. And that solidified it - saving Mrs Hobbs from her husband. Once they were able to forget _that kid_ and wave hello at the adult they saw working in the community - for the community - life became easier. On the surface some might have thought that it was a sign that the town of Wolf Trap was finally healing from their communal tragedy. But the truth was it just made it easier for them to pretend everything was just fine. Just damn fine. Will could see the truth of it.

As Will grabbed his coffee and sat down to pull on his socks and boots, he considered again that demolishing this old house and moving into the town proper wasn’t going to solve a damn thing either. Too many ghosts one way or the other. 

He grunted as he got to his feet, grabbed his coffee and whistled for Winston, locking up as the dog jumped up into the flat bed, ready for their day. 

*

“Getting cold out there.” Will said, clapping his fur lined gloves together as he got into the Sheriff’s office, before pulling them off and throwing them on Jack’s desk. 

“Hey!” Jack protested. Will frowned a little, knowing that it was as much in shock - that he hadn’t heard Will come in - than annoyance. He ignored it. He didn’t want to admit Jack was getting old as much as the Sheriff himself didn’t. 

The outer office was bustling - everyone checking in or checking out. Bryony Zeller had just poured herself a cup of strong coffee and settled at the dispatcher’s desk, not removing her scarf. She gave Will that half wary smile of hers as they watched Winston trot into the inner office, a few years older than him she’d been one of the teens spared.

Will watched as Winston went to the noisy little heater next to Jack’s desk and slumped down in front of it. He shared a look with Bryony - both pointedly ignoring Jack collecting himself as he drew himself from the paperwork. He wasn’t as focused anymore, he was well passed retirement but Will knew he felt some intrinsic responsibility for the town. Will understood it, even if he did worry about Jack’s health. There was a strange energy about this town that even Will felt, despite having lived nowhere else. Jack seemed to think it was his duty to keep that in check.

Didn’t help that the snows were coming in. Within the next couple of days they’d be up to their necks in it, in the lead up to Christmas.

“Do your patrol Jack, then go home. Have lunch with Bella. Bring me back a sandwich.” Will grinned, slapping his mentor on the back even as he grumbled. “I got everything under control. Already checked the road - we’re fine. Even if the snow arrives tonight, we’re fine. The road will be open.”

He knew it was a source of anxiety for the man. “The drift blocks are up and all the ploughs are ready to go - parked just off the road. Just waiting for old man Price to start laying the salt on the bridge and high road. It’s under control.”

Jack nodded and stood up, moving slowly in the cold office as he grabbed his coat. Worry was still etched in his face, and Will knew it would remain there until the thaw in spring. But even so, there seemed something more this year. Maybe because he was under the weather? He’d seemed off the last week or so. 

It couldn’t just be the stress about the high road. The road and bridge out of town had only ever been impassable a handful of winters since Will was a kid. Sometimes their measures didn’t work out and the town had been cut off for the whole of the winter. Sometimes the snow came in too fast, too heavy and stuck the ploughs. Sometimes it rained at the wrong time and the ice became impassable. And if they couldn’t act fast on the worse than usual conditions then it became to bad to resolve. One year the ploughs themselves ended up completely buried in a snowdrift that they couldn’t dig out for weeks, until conditions eased.

Will remembered those times well, especially the most recent one, when he was first a Deputy. It was like the whole town had held its collective breath in fear at being isolated again. That was when they felt it the most - the strangeness here. The heavy feeling, that at those times, Will wanted to call evil. 

The door thud as Jack let himself out, the crisp coolness of the air - how still it was before the snows - caught Will’s breath as it filled the room for a moment. In winter it felt like the whole town waited for death, and Will knew that better than anyone. 

It was going to be a long day, and he knew two things: lunch would be one of Bella’s amazing sandwiches and; he’d sleep well tonight. 

*

_The beast loomed over him. So close he could almost reach out and touch him._

_His breath fogged the air above Will’s bed as he lay there frozen._

_He wanted to move. He_ wanted _to reach out. He wanted to touch-_

_“You’re mine Will Graham, I will come for you one day.” The words were lyrical, musical - the same sound that he had heard, the sound he wanted to follow. The beast leaned over him, Will could feel his icy cold breath against the side of his face. “Remember you are mine.”_

_Never fear what you might become, sweetheart._

Will woke with a start at the sound of his mother’s voice, and the words she had spoken to him often. His body trembled, dripping with sweat, he panted into his bedroom - his breath freezing in the air. He was uncomfortable mixture of hot and cold as the sweat rolled down his skin. He tried to calm himself 

He let out a sob, unable to hold it back. Just the one sharp noise in the room, though it seemed to echo around him. 

He scrubbed his hands roughly over his face, running them up through his damp hair as he let out a heavy breath, trying to finally regulate it. Every damn winter he was plagued by these dreams - nightmares. 

The music. 

That terrible and entrancing sound that drew them all from their homes that night. The figure - black, blacker than the night with antlers and talons. Will had known he should have be afraid, but he wasn’t. He knew the appearance of the beast should have horrified him, he should have found it terrifying but instead it was beautiful. _He was beautiful._ And Will had wanted to follow him. 

He’d wanted to follow so desperately. 

Every winter he had these dreams and woke with the terror of regret. The knowledge that he should have been taken too. The heavy knowledge that he should feel relief instead, that he should have been thankfully to have been left behind. 

Most of the time he tried to feel little one way or the other about it, ignore it - try to leave it in the past. But in the winter he felt raw and these dreams always came. Nightmares that should remind him of how lucky he was to have escaped. But that wasn’t how he felt at all. They weren’t nightmares because of what he had escaped, but because of what he had missed.

He would end up replaying that night over and over in a weird sort of haze. Falling behind. Coughing and sick, unable to catch up. Weak and worthless. The music started to fade, the children and the beast that lead them became distant - obscured by the snow that didn’t feel cold until Jack found him. 

He wrapped the blankets around his shoulders and stood, moving to the window and looking out - the snow was already falling.

_Remember you are mine._

Will shivered. He wasn’t. He wasn’t anybodies. He was alone and abandoned.

*

“Will?” The voice was broken with sobbing but Will knew it well enough - Bella Crawford. A woman that had been as good as family to him since he’d left the hospital twentyfive years ago, and she and Jack had pulled the slack left by his father. Had given him home cooked meals and a pull out to sleep on when his dad was too drunk to remember he even had a kid. 

“Bella, what is it?” He put down his coffee. The obvious concern in his voice brought a low whimper from Winston, who drew up next to his kitchen stool and leaned into his leg. It was a little after 11pm. The hour of sleep he’d had before the nightmare had made it unlikely he’d get more and now he was wide awake.

“It’s Jack. He… Will, he’s gone.” 

He knew immediately what she meant. He knew it so deep to his core he wondered if this was the empathy his mother had talked of when he was little. He could feel Bella’s pain and loss, even her concern over having to tell him - her concern for how he would feel. 

“I’m coming over.” 

By the time Will pulled up outside the Crawford’s house, a couple of neighbours were gathered and the coroner’s van was pulling away - driving slowly from the house in the increasingly heavier snowfall. 

Will pulled up and jumped right out, Winston on his heels as he ran up the stoop and let himself in. 

“Bella?” 

He saw her straight away, standing looking out the window at where the coroner had pulled away. A tissue held up to her face, but otherwise composed with her usual quiet dignity. She turned to him and gave him a comforting smile, and it broke Will’s heart that her first instinct was the comfort him than seek any for herself. 

He went over to her and rested a hand lightly on her arm. She smiled. 

“They think it was a heart attack. I was up early, let him sleep in. When he hadn’t come down after a while I went up to check and he… they think he went peacefully. Might not have even woke up. You know, he thinks… he thought of you as a son. We could never have any of our own and… Will the night that monster took all the children but left you - you were a blessing to us Will.” She took his hands in hers and a tear rolled quietly down her cheek. Will felt a tight pain in his throat that had been absent at the death of his own father. 

He sat and comforted here a while, though she put on a brave face and told Will not to worry. Her friends rallied around and were sweet to him. When they left them quiet for a moment - busying themselves in the kitchen - Bella turned to Will with a very serious expression. 

“Will, there are a lot of things over the years that Jack only half told me, to save my feelings. And I think… I think he wanted to tell you. I think that’s what this is.” She pulled an envelope from her pocket and handed it to him. He knew the writing on the front - his name - as Jack’s and put it in his own pocket, feeling that the correct thing to do. Bella continued to look concerned and then added - “Did Jack tell you about Hannibal Lecter?” 

The name rang the faintest of bells and Will quirked his head. “I don’t think I’ve met him.”

Bella shook her head. “No, no you wouldn’t have. He’s… his family used to live here, he’s been back in town the last week. The old Lecter estate.” 

That was where the bell had rung, Will realised. People had called it that when he was a kid, but these days it was just known as the firebug place. It was just off of Firebug Lane, so named because of the propensity of the insects there every year. He was sure no one had called it the Lecter Estate in years. It was damn near derelict - they included it in a patrol now and then along with some other outlying or disused properties about the town. 

“You should maybe check on him? Let him know about Jack? I think his visit was in part to see Jack but… I, I can’t explain all that. I don’t know it all. I know Jack thought he owed the man something.” She ran out of words and Will could feel that she was considering Jack’s personality - that he felt responsible for too many people, the whole town really. 

He squeezed her hands and smiled. “I’ll take care of it Bella, don’t worry.” 

By the time he left Bella at the house with one of her friends, he was emotionally drained. It was hard to imagine the town - that life in general - could continue without the imposing personality of Jack Crawford. 

He settled with a glass of whiskey before opening the letter. He knew he shouldn't. He was on duty again in the morning - but at least one whiskey would be needed. 

_Will,_

_If you’re reading this then I’m gone, and I expect you’re thinking that this is a letter asking you to take care of Bella for me. But you know as well as anyone that woman needs no one to take care of her and she’d cuss me out for suggesting it._

_I need to let you know this - something I should have told you long ago. I always told myself I would explain when you were older and that day never seemed to come. I guess I’m a coward really._

_I never really told you what happened that night I found you in the woods. I know your memory is sketchy - simplified. The memory of a child who knew no more than his immediate facts. And a child that had just been through a trauma, at that. There was more to it than what you remember._

_I know you pieced together some of it yourself over the years. You know about the infestation, but I don’t think you ever knew the whole story._

_I never told you about Hannibal Lecter. Will, if I’m honest I’d like to go to my grave knowing that you’d never know more than you already do, but I don’t have that luxury. I’ve lived in fear these years of history repeating itself and without me there, it falls to you. There is an evil in this town and I’ve tried for decades to contain it any way I could, any way I was able and it’s never really been enough._

_The files are all in my office, you’ll find them in my cabinet. Look under Lecter. It’s all there. And I’m sorry Will. I’m sorry for my part in any of this and having to leave it all with you. You deserve better. You’re a good kid. A fine man. A better person than most in this town._

_And, please take care of Bella all the same._

_Jack_

Will set down his glass and sighed out a quiet sob. The reality of Jack’s death seemed to loom over him and he had no idea how to process it. With his own father he had waited and prayed for death as the man slowly wasted in his own spite and bile. This was sudden and painful. A sharp and searing pain cutting through him that was only dulled by the intrigue left in the man’s wake. 

Will took a few deep breaths, buried a hand in Winston’s coat where he sat beside him. Allowed a few quiet tears to fall. Then he wiped his face, grabbed his coat and keys to the Sheriff’s office.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack's note leads Will into an unexpected mystery

“Succulent.” There was a laugh and a lip smacking noise, interlaced with the crackling and background sounds on the old and worn cassette tape. The word echoed off the cold walls of the empty inner office. The place itself seemed to have died along with Jack. The news had reached them just after Will and he had arrived to find the door closed and the night duty Deputy using a free desk in the outer office. The whole place was almost silent despite the Deputy and the night duty dispatcher sat close enough for chatter. 

Will had turned the heating on when he arrived, but the little electric space heater seemed no competition to the coming winter. When Will had left the Crawford’s house the snow was getting heavy, but now it was coming down so thick that visibility was almost nonexistent. It seemed much quicker and faster than usual. Will had that dire thought that they would be cut off by the afternoon at this rate. Will made a mental note to check that the salt and ploughs were sorted as they should have been. 

It could be a total whiteout soon and he wondered if he should just grab the file and go home, get snowed in there rather than the terribly empty feeling office.

But when he had busted open Jack’s filing cabinet, expecting… he wasn’t sure what he was expecting. But what he found had kept him there. The file was thick, everything from official reports to news clippings. When Will had lifted it onto the desk, the tape had come loose and fallen out. The label read - “Verger, M. Interview November 1st 1946”

Will had grabbed the cassette player from his desk drawer and set it out, popping in the tape as he sat and started to flick through the file.

When Verger, M started to laugh Will stopped the tape and wound it back to the beginning so he could get the context. What did this tape have to do with anything? It still wasn’t initially clear from the file - which so far was a wad of news clippings about the disappearance of the children. Some even mentioned him. And he knew as much as anyone on that subject, surely.

As the tape strained to a stop and then clicked off, Will pressed play.

Verger - that was the name of the old Mayor, the one from when he was a kid. They were one of those rich families that had their own estates on the edge of the town. Didn’t hear talk of them much now, but Will was sure they had run the local meat industry - that was the root of their wealth - generations of it. They were the subject of some hushed gossip, but only since the death of the Mayor a few years ago. He had hardly heard of them before that, but then he had become aware of the daughter Margot having inherited over her older brother, despite her apparently - and widely gossiped - proclivities. He had heard little of the son, other than rumours that he maybe was institutionalised? Their estate was barely on the edge of the town limits so it had never seemed pertinent to know more and he was not one for gossip. Now Will wondered if he should have paid more attention. 

“This is Interview….” the tape crackled as though the beginning of the tape had been mangled. He wound it on a few seconds and then played again. This time the quality was poor but he could hear the same voice that had said “succulent.” It was not a kind voice. 

“Oh yes, freely.”

“You’re willing to sign a confession stating that?” The voice that appeared at the beginning of the tape. Will vaguely recognised it as one of the deputies that had retired when he was still a kid. 

There was a manic and sickening laughter that went on too long for comfort before Verger spoke again. “Oh yes.”

“Mason, are you telling me you are confessing to killing - and eating - the Lecter’s?”

“Oh goodness no. Not eating, not all of them. You see it was only the girl I wanted but parents do tend to be troublesome in such things. I killed them, and the little one. And then I carved her flesh-” Will’s breath stopped, he swallowed, his mouth dry as the words sunk in. “-it’s not so different to butchering a pig you know? Though she didn’t have much meat on her bones.” A light and sinister chuckle. “But.. what she did have was… succulent.” Then came the laugh and the lip smacking noise before Verger continued through his laughter - “Like a little piggy.”

“Fuck.” Clearer from one of the interviewers. There were some other discrete sounds of discomfort around the room.

Verger continued to laugh like a madman. Will felt sick to his stomach but he had to keep listening, there was something here that Jack had wanted him to know. 

“And what about the boy? Hannibal Lecter?” 

Will’s ears perked up at the familiar name as Verger’s laughter tailed off. 

“Horrid child. Look here, he kicked my shins.” There was rustling and the jangle of a cuff. “When I tried to take his sister. I locked him in the cabin… I don’t know, some hunting lodge on the estate grounds.”

There was commotion and Will knew the officers would be passing that information on, getting someone on looking for the missing boy. For Hannibal Lecter. 

“And was it the hunting lodge where you obtained the knife, or did you bring that with you?” 

“It’s my own of course! How else would I test the fat? Father gave it to me, an heirloom. I do hope you return it in a good condition when I am released.” 

Will wanted to turn it off. He’d seen some shit as a Deputy, it wasn’t like there had never been violence in this town. He’d had to deal with Hobbs after all and some people were not well adjusted. But this Verger guy? Was he insane? 

It sort of scared Will and reassured him at the same time. When he’d killed Hobbs he’d felt… not as he had expected. He knew killing someone was the ugliest thing there was. But… when it felt just and right? When the someone you killed had their knife to their wife’s throat? He hadn’t thought twice about emptying his gun into the man. And he was always terrified by the fact that he’d do it again. That there was a line in killing someone, and he had found out where his line was. And he had not felt remotely bothered by it, only by the fact that he wasn’t bothered and what that might say about him. 

He had kept hold of the fact that it was attuned to, what he felt, was a good moral compass. And that was now affirmed by this tape - he knew that not only was he not like Mason Verger and never could be, but that he’d have no problem killing the man as he had killed Hobbs. He surely wouldn’t be the first or only officer of the law to have tendencies that one might decide more vigilantism.

Before Verger could continue there was the sound of commotion and a door opening, people talking heatedly but not close enough to the recorder to be completely clear. Then one gruff voice sounded above the rest - a commanding tone - 

“This interview is over. You will not speak to my son again without our lawyer present.” 

More commotion, then the room was quiet and Will heard a much younger Jack Crawford murmur - “sick fuck.”

And then static as the recording ended but the tape rolled on, empty.

Will startled when the tape finally ended and clicked off. His palms were sweaty, and Verger’s sinister tone echoed around his mind. He realised he was breathing erratically and took a few deep breaths to calm himself before looking back down at the file he had zoned out on. 

He removed the top of the pile that was a variety of newspaper clippings over the years, but mostly from the months immediately after the mass disappearance of the town’s children. Beneath that were official reports on the disappearance. Will skipped through them - things he had avoided for years but knew he could have accessed at any time. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what the official reports said, but he flicked through them all the same - one name catching his eye.

_Hannibal Lecter._

Will went back to the top of the section - Persons Of Interest. 

He scanned quickly through. If Lecter was a child when that Verger tape was made then he couldn’t have been one of the kids that went missing. That much was already certain from the fact that Bella had mentioned he was in town visiting. Will had kept to himself at school, but was sure he knew the names of most of the kids in the town and Hannibal Lecter was unusual enough that he would have surely remembered it, so they must have been years apart. 

_Hannibal Lecter -_

_Arrived in Wolf Trap October 31st 1956. Last seen by [redacted]._

“Redacted?” Will frowned and scanned the rest of the page. It was almost unreadable and gave virtually no information, with parts of almost every sentence redacted. He rifled through the rest of the report and it seemed to be the only section given this treatment. “What the hell?”

He put down the report and carried on through the file. It went from seeming like an archaeological excavation to being one when he unexpectedly hit 1948. He moved everything before that into one pile and then picked up the newspaper report. 

**Case Closed: Lecter Family Slaughter Remains Unsolved.**

Will frowned again, looking at the cassette player as though it would give him answers and then back to the headline. This was a year after the confession he had just heard was recorded. How could it have been unsolved if there was a confession right there on tape?

He moved the newspaper clippings and found a notebook, the scrawl on the front told him it was Jack’s. When he opened it he could see the outline and discolouration where the tape had clearly been slotted between a few pages until he had dropped it. 

He read the first entry. Dated November 1956 - a month before the children disappeared.

_Bella is sick._

_Doctor says it’s cancer. It’s like this evil force eating her from the inside and I have to ask, is this my fault? Is this punishment?_

Will stopped and swallowed. Bella had told him before about her cancer, she’d been sick when the kids went missing, but by the time Jack had started to mentor him and take him there for dinner, she was recovering. In remission. She’d been cancer free since. 

Will’s hands shook around the book. This was something personal, this was not the notebook of the Sheriff, but of Jack Crawford. It felt intrusive to read it, but Jack had told him where to find it. He would have known Will would read it. 

_Are we all being punished?_

_Ten years ago I listened to a child, a ten year old boy, tell me what had happened to his family. Something I already knew because the sick animal who did it had already given us a confession. And then I had to look that kid in the eyes, tell him I would help him, that I would get him justice, only to have it all go away. To make me a damn liar!_

_I tried. I tried so hard. But Bella was sick and I wasn’t anybody, just another Deputy. What could I do?_

_I should have tried harder._

Will flicked through the next few pages. Notes on the Verger case - Jack’s recollections ten years after the fact from the looks of it. Scrawled, with extra notes in some of the margins - like he was trying to get down everything about the case that he knew. And Will had to wonder at that.

He put the book aside and carried on through the pile until he found the official investigation report into the murder of the Lecter family. He was a few pages in when he stopped and started flicking through. There was just no mention of Verger. There was nothing about his interview of confession. Dead end enquiries, no leads. 

Will let it fall closed and sat back in the chair. What the fuck was going on? 

Did the Lecter family murder get covered up? 

As if Jack was answering him, Will noticed something had shifted and was poking out the side of the remaining papers. He pulled it and found a photo. It looked official, almost like a portrait. A family standing on the steps of the town hall. A man Will vaguely recognised as Mayor Verger. With him were two children - a girl, no more than three. who looked sad and distant, and a boy who looked… If Will wanted to describe to someone what evil looked like in a child, he would have shown them this photo. 

He shuddered and turned it over. Jack’s hand writing on the back - 

**Mayor Charles Verger, Mason and Margot Verger. 1943 Accession.**

If Will had to guess, the handwriting was sort of angry. The scrawl said as much as the photo itself. 

He went back to the report on the murder and started reading again - turning to the profiles of the family. The Lecter’s were rich and had influence - some sort of European nobility who had immigrated from a town called Hamelin, Lithuania, in 1938. They were active in the community and well liked. Will wondered how he had never really known of them before - clearly people never spoke of them now. They were a bloody footnote in the town’s history and deemed unworthy of any sort of justice.

Maybe if one of the adults had survived things would have been different. But what was a ten year old boy going to do if someone as influential as his parents wanted to cover something up? As it was the report stated that some uncle arrived shortly thereafter and took young Hannibal away with him back to Europe, and that was that. Case closed and problem solved. 

Will realised he’d been clenching his jaw as he read. Anger seething inside of him. And a sort of pity for Jack, having lived all these years with the weight of this and any guilt he attributed himself. Will could see how it would have been difficult to do something at the time, but in the years since? 

He felt drained at the thought of even attempting to drag all this up… But that was exactly what he was going to do, wasn’t it? He could only imagine that was Jack’s main purpose in telling him about this file. He would have known that Will wouldn’t have hidden or destroyed it, he would have known Will would have acted on this information. 

Where to start was the main issue. This was all so convoluted, and in his absorption of murder of the Lecter family, Will realised he had lost sight of the initial concern. That Hannibal Lecter, who must have then been twenty years old, returned to Wolf Trap around the time the children went missing. That the point had been reported and redacted. That Jack’s focus had been the children. 

It had always been the children, Will remembered. 

He had been with Jack most of that night. When he couldn’t keep up and Jack found him wandering back out of the woods. He had ended up in the Sheriff’s car and then the Sheriff’s office for some time, the town frantic and Jack trying to maintain order. It was hours before Will was actually taken to the hospital by one of the deputies. And even then there seemed this weird reluctance to let him go - no one wanted to lose sight of the one remaining child. 

And it didn’t end there. Every year on the anniversary of the disappearance Jack was different. Worked longer hours, patrolled the edge of the woods. Seemed sort of torn between guarding the town against it happening again, and waiting for the children to come home. 

Will went back to Jack’s notebook, flicking through the updates of November 1956. Mostly that he was still unable to anything. One impassioned entry about how he had tried to get a copy of the report before the redactions only to find it had been purposefully destroyed. 

When he got to mid December, the entries picked up again. Pages and pages filled - some of the handwriting smudged in a hurry or a barely readable scrawl. It was the week leading up to the disappearance of the children. 

_Hannibal Lecter visited me today. He remembered me, was polite. Shook my hand. He has something charming about him and I have to admit I was relieved to see how well adjusted he has grown to be._

_Who could imagine watching your parents butchered? Losing them and a sister to that monster and his actions._

_Imagine returning to a town where that sicko still walks free. I failed that kid, the whole damn town did. Damn the Vergers._

There were more of Jack’s thoughts on the Vergers which Will skipped over until another entry caught his eye - a few days later. 

_The reports of infestations, weird animals, dying vegetation, seem to be increasing. We’re getting more by the day. I don’t even know what to tell people - we asked for Fish and Wildlife to send someone out to take a look. They can’t get anyone out here before the snow hits and we have no way of knowing if the road will stay open. If we’re cut off then we’re stuck._

_We have been offered help by Hannibal Lecter. I’m reticent about it. I don’t know that it’s right to expect anything of the man at this point. But he says he has a background in wildlife management, he’s happy to take a look._

Will frowned. He only had vague recollections of the infestations that happened the week leading up to the disappearance. He had never really connected the two in his head before, it was another of those thing that the town had never spoken of. And of course it had become overshadowed by the disappearances anyway. He might have thought it hadn’t happened at all, but for the fact that his dad caught a rat the size of a cat in a trap on their property. 

Will skipped over the notes Jack had made on the progress of the snow clearing, the fact that the snow was predicted to hit much sooner than expected this year. Only briefly taking in the worsening of the situation. Crops failing, livestock dying or being attacked. At this rate they would struggle until Spring if the town was cut off by the snow as expected. He could read the panic in Jack’s words, see it in the messy writing. 

And then - 

_Hannibal has offered a solution. Says he can come up with a simple but effective method of killing the off the infestation. Something to do with noise - sound. A bunch of stuff I don’t understand about sonic frequencies. Music I guess, when it comes down to it._

_He just wants one thing in return._

_Justice._

_This is it. I have to do this now. Ten years is more time than he should have waited. Without his help this town will not survive the winter. We owe it to him and his family to give them justice after all these years!_

There were more short and rushed entries detailing the progress being made. Hannibal was building some sort of machine that would emit a sound on a frequency that would drive the infestation out. Once they got passed the town and into open country they would no doubt freeze. Jack seemed delighted to be working with the young man, even more delighted that Mayor Verger had agreed that if Hannibal succeeded, he would indeed hand his son over to the authorities. 

The next entry that Will zoned in on was written in heavy ink, as though Jack were pressing the pen almost through the paper in his rage. 

_God damn Verger. Damn him to hell!_

_Hannibal did it, as he promised. A clear twenty four hours now the machine has been running and the town is recovering. He saved the town. This town owes him more than it has any right to and the least he could expect was for the Mayor to keep his word._

_He laughed. Laughed at me, down the phone when I told him it was time to bring Mason in. Said I was naive to think that it was ever going to happen. He isn’t about to give up his son, and what the revelation would do to his reputation, position and business._

_Laughed over and over, that the scandal would destroy the town and end many careers, possibly even my own. Talked to me like I was stupid and hadn’t already considered that, wasn’t already prepared._

_I told Hannibal, assured him I would do everything within my power. Verger made a liar of me again!_

_He’s gone. He left. Asked to pass onto Verger that whatever happened now was down to him. That he had made a promise to exact justice, and he always kept his promises._

_I have truly never been so chilled before in my life than when he said those words. He was frightening, larger than life. I don’t know how he plans to do it, but I’m sure he really does mean to bring this town to justice and maybe that’s just fine._

Will was shaking as he put down the notebook, wiping sweaty palms on his pant legs. He was becoming invested in this unfolding story, all the moreso for it being real. This was something he had never known about Jack, about the town. This was something that had shaped all their lives, not least his own. For years he had deliberately not sought answers, and now they were being thrust at him. His chest was tight from the emotion of it. He didn’t want to know any of this, much less have the sudden responsibility of it.

He hadn’t sought these answers because he had never wanted to think about it. He didn’t want to give into that constant urge to spend every waking moment hearing that music, and feeling the regret of being left behind. He was meant to have gone with the children, he _wanted_ to go with them. The music still called to him and thrummed in his blood. 

He pulled the book back in front of him and scanned to the next entry. 

_Did he take the children?_

*

Will had had to push the notebook away, struck with the thought of Hannibal taking the children. Is that what had happened? He always wondered at whether his memories were corrupted by the distance from childhood and delirium from malnutrition. Because it hadn’t been a man that had taken the children - he had never told Jack - but it was that beast from his dreams. The one that exuded beautiful music as though it vibrated of its very skin and antlers.

Will snapped out of the reverie and riffled through the remaining items in the file, a lot of it was pretty mundane and grounding. Xerox’s of reports of vandalisation and such over the years at the mansion at the edge of the town - the Lecter’s house. As though Jack had been keeping an eye on the place. There were other, slightly strange, reports - surveys taken annually of the crops and livestock, in the weeks leading up to the anniversary of the disappearance, like he was checking. Will’s mind went back to the connection Jack must have started to see between the children, the rodent infestation and Hannibal Lecter. He tried to get his mind there, but despite his imagination there was a disconnect as though this was part reality part fantasy.

A feeling that was strangely brought home by the the final item, tucked at the back of the file - more secreted than an afterthought. It was a xerox of a children’s story, the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Will had never heard of it. The story was short and to the point, but the pages themselves were annotated with Jack’s writing. Some observations, concerns - the most chilling being the note - 

_What about Will? He shouldn’t have been left behind, will he come back for him some day? I failed Hannibal, but maybe I can still keep Will safe._

At the bottom of the page -

_Always keep close watch on Mason Verger. Don’t let him get away with this again._

Will swallowed hard and looked at everything laid out in front of him on the desk. Disorganised now, or so it might seem - little piles of varying sizes and from various times. His thoughts went to Jack’s odd habit on the anniversary of the disappearance. He hadn’t noticed at first when he was younger, but had a vague ideas as time went on, that on the anniversary of the disappearance he would disappear - take himself off on his own patrol regardless of staffing or weather. He only had a clear knowledge of it once he was deputised. He’d even asked Deputy Katz one time who had replied with a shrug that on the anniversary, Jack would go on his own patrol. Was he patrolling to make sure the infestation hadn’t returned? That the children weren’t threatened? That Mason Verger didn’t hurt anyone again.

“This is what you meant Jack? This is my responsibility now. Make sure history doesn’t repeat itself?” 

In that moment he made the decision to do what Jack would be doing at this moment. 

He grabbed the keys to his truck. 

*

Will ruffled Winston’s fur, the dog now in the passenger seat rather than his usual place in the back. It was dark and cold, snow thick about them, and Winston’s breath fogged the air as his tongue lolled out. 

Will smiled. “Don’t worry buddy, this is only a marginally terrible idea.”

Winston whined as Will drove through the near impenetrable snow. It was slow going as he headed for the edge of town. He had grabbed the address from the town records - Mason Verger now lived with some older relative, in their apparent care. An old aunt or something. Someone who took care of him at his father’s behest rather than him being placed in an institute. Will had considered it to be gossip until he had pulled the address information and found notes on the file. She had power of attorney and was listed as his carer. 

Will was just passing the end of Firebug Lane, when he noticed lights and movement in the top floor of the not too distant mansion. The Lecter’s mansion. 

“Fuck.” He muttered and Winston whined again. He slowed and made a wide-turn to head down the lane and into the Estate. “Just a quick detour.” He told the dog, patting his head. “Better check out what’s going on here.” He wondered about stupid kids or cold tramps and them being stranded out in the dead old house in this weather.

He pulled up outside the house, as close as he could get to the front door and slid out of the car. The cold punched the air out of him, the wind now bringing the snow in quick and sideways. Ten minutes - he’d give himself ten minutes at most, no matter what he found. He needed to check in on Mason and then… he wasn’t sure. He just knew it was what Jack would do. What would happen once he found the man, he couldn’t say.

The short path from the drive was overgrown and obscured by the snow. He picked his way through to the front of the grand house. Almost too grand for the area. He had only been out here a few times, usually reports of vandalism - kids breaking in on a dare. 

It wasn’t technically derelict - it had been boarded up good and there were a few possessions still in there - furniture, art and such - covered. For the most part it was left alone and enjoyed notoriety as the source of local ghost stories. 

Will ruminated on how strange it was that he had never really heard the name Lecter before, that he had never known any history of this property. That no one _ever_ talked about it as though it had been abandoned a hundred years ago and faded into the history of the town.

He tried the front door, expecting nothing and surprised when it actually opened. It was heavy and stiff but didn’t take a lot to open it enough to shoulder inside and out of the snow even as some of it drifted through with him. 

Will pulled out his torch and turned it on, the steady beam of it catching the dust in the air. He swept it over the foyer, noting the size; the location of the stairs; the furniture covered in sheets. As he took one step forward, into this mausoleum of a house, the torch began to flicker. He tapped it a couple of times but the beam flickered again and then went out. 

“Shit.” He muttered, turning it off and on again to no avail. 

That was when he heard the click of shoes on polished wood flooring. It echoed for a moment, making it hard to tell the direction at first, and Will found his heart starting to race - it didn’t sound like the shuffle of a tramp or scampering of teens. He put one hand on his holster, flicking the catch and ready to draw. 

“Hello? Who’s there?” He called, the words bouncing off the walls in a way that was more eerie than he would have liked. 

A glow of light appeared on the next level - leaking through to the top of the stairs and getting brighter as it approached. Will felt a strange shiver over his entire body, a vulnerable feeling of being seen when he wanted to hide. The light grew closer and brighter until he could make out it was a lamp, held by a dark figure. The figure little more than a black shape as his eyes were blinded by the bright lamp and unable to see clearly beyond. It came to a stop at the top of the stairs and Will knew it was looking down on him. He felt like prey and fought the urge to run.

Instead he was rooted to the spot, trapped by equal parts fear and curiosity. Fear of something overwhelming - a sense of something he had, not of the figure. The realisation hit him hard and he swallowed, his mouth dry. Will opened his mouth to speak but was cut off before he had chance. 

His radio crackled into life and the dispatcher’s concerned tone was clear even if the signal itself was distorted by the snow - 

“Deputy Graham, please respond. We have… I don’t know, reports of vermin? Rats? Will there’s something going on up near the woods, I’m getting all kinds of crazy reports. Will, can you hear me?” The line crackled a little but Will found himself still watching that unmoving lamp, stock still despite wanting to move. “I’ve got all kinds of reports about giant rats, they’re coming out of the snow, hundreds of them. People are starting to panic. Will? Will?”

The figure started towards him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course, I have appropriated Hamelin. It is in fact in Germany, not Lithuania but... *throws up hands*


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal opens up a whole new world to Will...

“Oh god, Will-” The line fizzled and Bryony’s pitiful words disappeared into snowy static. Will was painfully reminded of that call twentyfive years earlier that had come through Jack’s radio. He shuddered. 

“Where are my manners.” The heavily accented voice was smooth and warm. The figure started to come into focus as he moved closer and the lamp was less blinding as the distance closed - a well dressed man, with a concerned smile. “Will, is it?” 

“Deputy Graham.” Will corrected, his voice breaking around the words. He cleared his throat, trying to ignore the immense power and pull he felt at the closeness of the stranger.

“My apologies, I misheard your radio. My name is Hannibal Lecter, I arrived last week and have made the upstairs hospitable for my visit, but I’m afraid my generator seems to have given up under the snow. Is there a reason for your visit, Deputy? An emergency?”

“The snow.” Will replied, repeating the man’s own word - caught in his gaze and lulled by his familiarly melodic intonation of his voice. He could feel his heart racing and his skin prickling with sweat as he realised something in that moment that Jack’s guess was correct. _This_ was Hannibal Lecter, and Will had no doubt - he _had_ taken the children. 

Will’s fingers twitched over his sidearm, and Lecter’s gaze darted to the action and then back to his eyes, with a further curl to his smile. 

“The Sheriff sending out deputies to check on the locals? It’s very kind and thoughtful, I didn’t realise anyone other than Jack knew I was visiting.” The comment was so polite and casual that it was almost as though they could be sat comfortably in armchairs, facing each other in front of a fire. Will’s imagination took him there all too easily. 

“Jack is...” Will’s mouth was dry as he tried to say the words. 

Lecter’s smile turned fond and his eyes soft as he said “Ah, uncle Jack. How is he?” 

“He passed this evening… yesterday evening” Will corrected realising it was morning again, a new day. The words fell from Will’s mouth with little thought and brought with them a flood of emotion that felt like it might burst through at any moment. Had it only been a few hours. It felt like Will had lived the years of the town over again in that time, through the man’s eyes. 

“I’m sorry to-” Lecter stepped forward as though he was going to reach out in comfort.

At that Will stepped back on his right foot, hand ready on his gun.

“That’s close enough.” 

Lecter’s smile was unnerving and Will felt a tremor of something go through him, felt words trying to break through his thoughts. Because as much as he knew he should just continue his journey out to Verger, there was something else bubbling up inside him. 

“You left me behind.” Will blurted, the words full of more anger than he had ever realised he held. Thoughts of his shitty childhood with his alcoholic father, being sick all the time from neglect, and then missing that chance for a new life - whatever it held. 

Lecter’s features softened and he looked in that moment so beautiful and terrifying, as though Will could see the man’s true self - and that was a dark. A monster. 

It sent a thrill through him, like regaining something that had been lost to him for so long. Something that had been intended for him. Something that he had dreamt of almost every night for twentyfive years - a little ball of darkness within him that was borne that day. 

“Yes, I can only apologise for that Will. However, I cannot regret it.” Lecter’s smooth tone was an echo of the music he had drawn the children away with - that sound that Will had wanted to follow - would have followed into damnation. 

“You left me behind.” Will growled the words, his lip curling with anger. 

“Will…” His name came out on a sigh and Lecter moved closer, putting his hand gently over Will’s raised hand. Will hadn’t even realised his grip had closed around the gun and leveled it. Lecter gently lowered the firearm until Will came back to himself and slid it back into the holster.

“Will you let me show you why I don’t regret it? I promise no harm will come to you. And if you are willing to listen then no harm will come to the town either.”

“It was you. You left me” Will muttered, the anger seeping from him at the touch, despite the conflicted venom remaining within. Yes, he had wanted to go, but this man had stolen the children and done who knows what with them. Will couldn’t pretend to understand any of it. Only that, with Jack gone, he was the only person that stood between the townspeople of Wolf Trap and the strange evil that haunted the place. He just was still so unsure about what - or who - that evil was. 

“Will you let me explain? Will you let me take you there?” Lecter was closer to him now, standing in his personal space. Will could feel the heat of him, the scent of the woods on him. He felt light headed, dizzy, as Lecter talked. 

The music in his voice took Will back to his childhood, to that desire - that need - to follow him. And Will didn’t even want to fight it.

*

The snow was falling thickly and he vaguely heard Winston whine as they passed his truck. But then they hit the edge of the woods and everything changed. 

Will felt sick, like he was flipped over. He felt foggy and a few steps seemed as though he was walking through a wall of jello. 

And then he came out the otherside. 

There was no snow, his mind felt clearer and the fogginess was now on the outside, only a hint of it remaining. A stuffy sort of humidity surrounded him. The air was still and the woods were lit with a warm orange glow that seemed to have no source. Blossom filled the air, drifting rather than falling, in slow motion and seemingly never hitting the ground. 

He felt comforted by the heat.

It reminded him of the vacation they had taken to visit his grandfather in Louisiana the summer before his mother left. It had been so warm, a constant heat he had never known having grown up in Wolf Trap - a town that felt almost constantly in winter. But more than that, he knew that the memory had just become more beautiful and comforting to him as the years had passed. As time passed and his sweaters became threadbare and the holes in his socks mattered little considering the holes in his shoes. His one good coat had been a size too small. The overwhelming feeling of his childhood was the bone chilling cold that seemed to consume him inside and out. All except that one bright time with his grandfather. 

He had considered running away, trying to find that warm place again. Maybe his mother would be there? But then the children had disappeared and he felt compelled to stay. Even when he grew to an age when he might take off on his own, he still didn’t because the further he went from the woods, the stronger the music in his mind became - calling him back.

The thought of that now, angered him. 

“You kept me here.” He muttered angrily as they walked. “I could have left, I wanted to leave, but your song kept me here… waiting.”

“Yes, Will. I know. And I’m sorry for any pain that caused you.” The lyrical tone soothed him for a moment before making him even angrier.

“You’re not sorry, one damn bit.” He spat the words and swung around to face Lecter. “I just want to know… Why?” 

Lecter’s smile was soft and a little unsure. “Happy fortune? And a long story. But in the end it comes to one thing I suppose.”

“And what’s that?” Will snarled.

“Companionship.” Lecter swept his hand in front of them in a flourish, indicating the path ahead before starting forward. Will couldn’t help but follow him as he had twentyfive years earlier. “They are all safe of course, I could never harm them. Not after… I could never hurt a child.” 

“Just their parents. Just the town.” Will replied with no little venom. 

“The same people who hurt me, hurt my family. Didn’t protect us, didn’t give us justice. And were happy to take any consequences rather than give me justice when they promised it.” Lecter bit back as he continued to tread softly and silently through the woods. 

Will couldn’t respond to that - hearing in his head over and over - _Succulent._

“So they live here?” Will asked. _Wherever here is._

“Yes. They are all my wards. But time moves differently here, they have hardly aged in these many years. They make for diverting company, but not as fulfilling as adults. Though you would be surprised at how intelligent and precocious children can be.” He stopped and turned to look at Will, his eyes sweeping over him. “I crave the company of an adult, and the opportunity fate presented in you-”

“Fate!” Will snorted. 

“Yes fate.” Hannibal started to walk again, almost at the treeline. “I’d call it fate. That you were too sick to keep up, made sick by the neglect of your father and abandonment of your mother. A woman whose lineage takes her back to Europe and-”

“How did you know that? What do you know about her?” Will snapped.

“Most white Americans a descended from Europeans, it could be a lucky guess if you’d prefer.” Lecter dismissed.

“But it isn’t.”

“No, it isn’t. I made it my business to know more of you, Will. I had a sense of you, but needed to know more. And what I discovered was very interesting indeed. Perhaps you might be intrigued by my own past and where-” 

“I don’t find you that interesting.” Will cut him off, glibly. 

“You will.” Hannibal replied, humorously as they broke through the treeline. And there before Will stood the town of Wolf Trap, bathed in sun, awash with the warmth of it. Full of the sound of children laughing as they played in the blossom filled streets.

Despite the warmth, Will felt chilled by memories. He had known these children. They had aged so little, almost exactly the children he had gone to school with, bullies and acquaintances alike. As they went about their business they looked at him and smiled, welcoming. 

“They don’t seem bothered to see another adult.” Will observed. 

“I have told them many times to expect you.”

*

Hannibal walked him through the town in the weird half light that was like no time of day or year that was familiar to Will. They had arrived at the Sheriff’s office - this version of the the office, so like his own, but not. Like a dream version. Like looking at it through a slightly unfocused lens. The office itself was musty and disused, as most things in this upside down town seemed to be - what need did they have for it? Especially when the few residents seemed to be under the age of thirteen.

Even so nothing looked to be decaying or showing signs of age and wear as they would in the real world. At the most, some of the papers there were a little yellowed with age, and Will had to wonder if those had been brought from the real world.

It was similar but for the content - the wall usually used for active investigation information was densely packed with all kinds of evidence and photographs. Family photos and paperwork - birth certificates, a family tree - of the Lecters. And then all kinds of information on Mason Verger. Will stepped up to take a closer look.

There was one newspaper clipping, several pages back from the front page, it seemed and from a tabloid rag rather than anything reputable. A report by a Freddie Lounds on the Verger heir’s clear insanity and rumours of his involvement in the mysterious murders of the Lecter family. 

“The one glint of truth.” Will turned at Hannibal’s voice. He was still stood a short distance off, near the door - lingering as though he hesitated to come in. Will looked back to the article, such as it was, as Hannibal continued - “You know, their murders were barely reported on at all, so well it was all covered up. Just that one peice of sensationalism that didn’t even make the front page of a tabloid rag.” 

There was no emotion there. It was something the man had come to terms with perhaps? Or at least it was no longer so raw that he couldn’t be objective. 

It had been more than thirty-five years.

Will shook his head. “It shouldn’t have happened, he shouldn’t have got away with it.”

Lecter raised a brow. “How much do you know?”

“You brought me here to get justice?” Will answered with his own question. 

Lecter shook his head. “I brought you to this place because you belong here. I brought you to this office to… I want you to understand why I did what I did.”

“Punishment. Vengeance.” Will replied, looking at Lecter again and feeling the pull of frustration over his own undeniable connection to the man. Perhaps their fates were tied together from the moment Wolf Trap had let Mason Verger get away with his crimes. 

“Enough.” Will finally answered Lecter’s question. “I… Jack left me a note and pointed me in this direction. He was always terrified you would come back for me. Even more terrified that Verger would strike again.”

“And now I have returned.” Again, emotionless. “The town did not deserve to keep any of its children, but I cannot regret that you were left behind. I know you can feel it too.” At that there was a slight quirk of his brow and an even slighter quirk of his lips. 

“What is it you believe I feel?” Will asked. 

“A connection. A kinship. Power. I can see you as much as you can see me, Will. You were never meant to come with me then, because you are meant to be here now.”

Will scoffed, huffing out a half laugh. “You don’t mean to help get justice do you. What do you think is going to happen here? The town - my town - is about to be cut off for the winter. The Sheriff is dead and if dispatch was correct, we’re about to be overrun with some sort of rodent infestation. You think I will stay here with you? Even if…” he hesitated over the words, because it wasn’t an if - he did see Hannibal very clearly, saw that their capacity - the line they drew - was the same. They had the same beast within them, Hannibal had mastered his differently, like some fairytale monster. “Even if I felt this _connection_ , why would I stay here when I am needed in Wolf Trap?”

Hannibal smiled gently. “Will, if you stay I will end the infestation. I will return the children to to the town to the jubilation of the residents - giving them something to ease the pain of their beloved Sheriff’s passing. I just ask one thing in return… and then you may leave me if you so wish.”

Will studied the man, he seemed resolute. And Will could not doubt his words, even in part because what other option did he have - last time the infestation ended with the loss of the children. What more could the town possibly lose? 

“What is the thing you want in return?”

There was silence for a moment, in which Will realised that he had already made up his mind to agree to whatever it was. Whatever got these children finally home. Whatever saved the town from the slow death it had been experiencing for the last twentyfive years, with or without the infestation. If Lecter wanted him to stay here? So be it. Jack was gone, Bella had real family to care for her. Winston would be happened upon and cared for. His whole life he had lived in that town and yet never had he grown roots. Never had he once presumed he would be missed. 

If it was an exchange, so be it. 

His blood chilled and a shock of _something_ ran through him when Lecter replied - “I want you to help me kill Mason Verger.”

*

Will woke in a cold sweat, panting and scrambling at the blanket covering him as he tried to come back to his senses. Tried to remember where he was and how he got there. This wasn’t his usual nightmare of loneliness and abandonment, of darkness curling around him but never consuming him. 

Instead, it was like his mind was clouded - numbed. The memories returned to him slowly. Foggy, as though waking from a dream in reverse - waking into a dream. 

The blanket fell away as Will sat and looked around, realising he was sat in his chair in the Sheriff’s office. But not his chair, not his office - a facsimile of his office. He pulled the blanket back up to his lap, wondering when that had been placed on him. The dream-like memories came through the fog. The lack of sleep must have crept up on him.

They had talked for what felt like hours. Will asking questions about this place, about the children and their wellbeing, only to discover it was Hannibal’s prime concern and consideration. Will found himself retelling memories he had of some of the children when he had known them years earlier. The conversation had naturally kept side-tracking into talks about interests - Will’s fishing, Hannibal’s drawing. When Hannibal had suggested he might like to draw Will sometime, Will had felt himself blush. Will had never before in his life been subject to this intent attention and found strange at first. Not least because of the time and place, but the ease of it.

He remembered the first few weeks of knowing Jack and Bella and them practically having to pry any information from him. But this had been easy. Enjoyable. Will had almost forgotten the situation they found themselves in. 

The only reason he hadn’t completely forgotten during those moments was because of the easing of his pain. Slowly, as they spoke, he felt the vicious coil of resentment that had settled deep within his bones for over two decades, unwind. He felt this crackle of a connection between them dissipate that bitterness that he had held for Hannibal, for being left behind. He was finding, as the minutes and hours passed, that he was grateful. 

He had never made a connection like this before, he had never so naturally made a friend - for he was sure that was what this was. And he couldn’t be bitter about it. He couldn’t resent having had to wait twentyfive years in order to have this connection. He found that slip from him to be replaced with a warmth at being able to now experience this as an adult, with the years of experience and hurt and life behind him. As Hannibal had said, perhaps it _was_ fate.

“Will, you’re awake.” Hannibal was stood at the office door with a disarming smile and something steaming in a mug. 

Will could only nod at the obvious and return the smile without thought. 

“You nodded off.”

Will nodded again, in acknowledgement. As much as he remembered enjoying their conversations, now things seemed even foggier than before. Even those discussions before he slept felt almost surreal. “Sure. How long have I been asleep.” 

“Barely any time, maybe thirty minutes. Just long enough to recharge.” Still that smile. 

“Why... why are you smiling?” Will huffed his amusement. He was often blunt, but this haze descending around them was making it hard to filter himself. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it felt like something seeping into him, like a drug, stripping him of some aspect of himself. Of the armour he’d built up over decades of loneliness. 

“Can I be honest?” Hannibal asked, a little sheepishly, setting down the mug and resuming a seat opposite Will.

Will nodded again. 

“I enjoy your company even more than I had even anticipated.” Hannibal muttered and then cleared his throat. “I would apologise for my earlier ambush but I know I will soon be apologising again and you’ll tire of that eventually so I have to consider using apologies sparingly.”

Will quirked a brow at him. “You have more to apologise for?” 

“I… I really want to impress on you how sorry I am that I left you behind - how hard it has been for you, however necessary that might have been. And I hope you can see now that it _was_ necessary.”

Will mulled it over. Now he was of an age and in a position to be of use to the man in his quest for justice or vengeance. 

Will shrugged. “You didn’t leave me, I couldn’t keep up.” He said, though he had always felt abandoned, he knew that it was just as much the fault of his parents for his poor health stopping him. He felt almost at peace with it for the first time in his life. 

Hannibal’s smile faltered. “That isn’t strictly true. I… I could have waited Will, for you to catch up. I could have stopped and carried you. But I didn’t.”

Will felt a sudden pain in his chest that he hadn’t felt since the day his mother had left. A different kind of ache now that he knew he truly had been abandoned. It felt doubly like a betrayal after the hours they had passed together. He had spent so many years trying not to think that and now to hear the truth of it after everything. 

“If I can explain.” Hannibal continued cautiously, eyes clearly searching Will’s for any outward sign of emotion, but he had set the armour back in place as much as was possible in this dreamstate. “Had it been merely a desire for an adult I could use to my own ends in my quest for justice against the Vergers, I could have left any of the children. I could, quite possibly, have even recruited an adult back then - there were several who would have been glad to assist in any manner of pains visited upon the Verger family.”

“Then why?” Will asked, trying to keep the pain from his tone.

“I saw something in you Will. It was very clear to me immediately that you were special, you were like me. I knew then that I had to wait, and not just for an adult accomplice. For a… for a partner, a companion. There is more, it’s difficult to explain..."

“I could never do what you did. Steal the children-”

“No?” Hannibal quirked a brow. “We all react differently than we might presume when under unexpected stressors.” 

“You sound like a psychiatrist.” Will huffed angrily.

“I am. That is my profession in the waking world.” He stopped almost as though expecting and waiting for the snort that Will then gave, before he continued. “I have tried in my own way to make sense of my reaction to the death and mutilation of my family. It was my uncle that helped me finally understand it all. Those ten years away from here were not idly spent. I planned this - should I not get the justice my family deserved. I…” He looked meaningfully at Will. “I did not plan you. It was a surprise to find one such as yourself amongst the children, and I knew immediately you were meant for other things. I couldn’t take you, couldn’t leave you in this place.”

“This is all just double talk. You’re saying you left me so that I could grow up, but I still don’t understand why and what role you see me having in all of this. I’m an officer of the law… I’m not going to help you kill Mason Verger.” Will tried to hold the conviction of his words.

Hannibal nodded his understanding. “And I will accept that if you so choose. But first… I, Will, I want to talk about your mother.” 

Will was taken aback and had to hold back an angry retort, spitting out - “You truly are a psychiatrist!”

Hannibal let out a low chuckle at that but pressed on. “Let me explain what I know. When you caught my attention and I left you behind I looked into your family, your history. Your mother’s family originally came from a small town in Northern Europe - Latvia to be exact. Not so very far from where my family originated. Close enough that the connection was then obvious to me. You and I Will, my family, your mother… we aren’t wholly in this world. It is the only reason you can be here and not lose yourself to the daze of it as the children have. I know they are beginning to wear on you now as you have not fully become yourself, but on the whole you would remain unaffected. Imagine how these years would have felt to you if you had experienced them all and remained bodily a child? I did not want that for you.”

“I don’t understand…” Will almost whimpered. His mind so full of information that seemed to thread through him and end loosely, waiting to come together. 

“The humans in my birth country call us fėjos. Fae.”

“Fairies?” Will nearly barked a laugh, but the look on Hannibal’s face stifled it. 

“Some call us demons. Humans have lots of words for things they don’t understand” Hannibal took a breath before continuing gently - “Your mother left Will because she met someone else.”

“No.” Will said firmly, though he knew from his dad’s litany of curses it was true. He just never wanted to believe that she left him, left him there with his dad. “She died.” He said firmly - also true, though he only found out years later when he began looking into it himself. She had relocated to Baltimore when she had left - it seemed a world away even now as an adult. She had been killed in a car accident a few months later. An accident, someone not paying attention, brakes not gripping quick enough. That was that. That was why she never came back for him. Discovering it had eased one pain and struck another.

As if reading his mind Hannibal spoke in a soothing tone - “She would have come back for you. It is hard for those like us to be without kin - a difficult and lonely existence that your mother surely felt keenly. She met another like her, with fae blood - he died also. But they would have come back for you once they were settled. They may not have even known what that attraction was between them - the draw of their blood to the other.”

Will was shaking. Rage and agony roiling around inside him, threatening to burst forth. 

No matter what he wanted to believe about his mother, he knew the truth and… what Hannibal had said, he somehow knew that was true as well. 

When Hannibal leaned forward and took his hands, Will didn’t protest. In fact the contact sent a vibration through him, like a circuit being completed. 

“You tried to make a home here, tried to find comfort in the Crawfords, but… you should be with your own people. Whether me or another but… I would prefer you be with me. I… have been lonely too.” 

Will realised he was trembling as he felt emotion flowing between them - all these years he had thought of Hannibal, one way or another. That monster that had taken the children. Cursed him for the abandonment, wondered what it might have been like to go wherever the other children had - even if it had been to their deaths. And now he knew Hannibal had spent those years thinking of him too. Waiting. Not just for an accomplice but for something _more_. Kinship. Not to be alone. 

“I don’t know what you’re asking me.” Will murmured. “It isn’t just to help kill Verger is it?”

“It can be. Or more than that. The choice is yours. I can take you back to Wolf Trap now and never bother you again. But I hoped… Verger or not, I hoped that you would come with me back to the old country. It’s… it’s different there Will. You will be different. Your power will be stronger. You have an empathy inherited from your mother, but that is just the tip of it. You could be deadly, whole and gleaming. Shot through with the light that runs within all fae and is dimmed so much here. You will become what you were always meant to be.”

Will let out a breath he didn’t realise he had been holding. He shuddered when Hannibal’s thumbs stroked across the back of his hands. 

“I will kill Mason Verger, I will have justice for my family. I cannot deny that I have a strong desire for you to help me - for you to embrace that nature within you. To fully awaken the fae that you are - from a people who could read the hearts of those around them, and fight so fiercely as to slay dragons. If you choose not to I hope that you still might consider learning more of who you are.”

Will looked up at Hannibal, not wanting to pull his hands away. He had never felt as complete as in that moment - that connection. The truth that was clear even through the haze. In that moment with Hannibal he knew himself better than he ever had before. 

“The kids, they… do they know? Do they understand where they are?”

“As much as they can. I had aimed to keep this as painless as possible for them. To them it seems just a dream.”

“I feel drugged. The longer I am here. I feel foggy and numb. Do they feel that way?”

Lecter nodded. “Yes, to a greater degree. A mild sedation in a sense. To them hardly any time has passed and certainly not enough for them to ask questions or be concerned.”

“They’re too stoned to ask questions.” Will huffed, caught somewhere between unhappy at that thought and glad they were saved from the suffering of missing their families the way their families hadn’t been spared. 

“Perhaps.” Lecter smiled and squeezed his hands. “Don’t you think that is for the best? Would you have them fully aware and upset?” The smile slowly faded and Lecter looked a little distant. “I… I could never hurt a child, Will. I could never see them harmed. They have all lived her safely, happily. In a dream. I would never punish them for their parent’s lack of compassion for my sister’s plight. Bringing you here… this place doesn’t affect you as it does them - you would have been aware. I… I couldn’t have done that to you, to any child.”

Will’s jaw tightened and he wanted to reach out for the man but didn’t. Few times in his life had he felt that urge to comfort someone else, mostly because there was no one that close to him. And now this practical stranger…

But he wasn’t a stranger. This connection had started twentyfive years ago when Will had been spellbound by Hannibal Lecter’s music. When he had been unable to follow and felt bereft. Had to learn over the long and unhappy years of his childhood, to deal with the pain of that separation - one just as great as when his mother had left. To never speak about it, never acknowledge it. 

He wanted to acknowledge it. 

A few moments of silence passed and then he found himself squeezing Hannibal’s hands in return. 

“You did more than their parents deserved.” Will told him, wanting to ease his pain and remembering Verger’s tape, remembering Jack’s notes.

“I wanted to save them Will.” the words trembled. “He is still there, still alive and free. I… I didn’t want any other children to be his victim.” 

Will had thought that he had seen Hannibal Lecter before, and understood him. But it was as though the last veil had been lifted. He was a monster, that much was true, but his heart was filled with a love for his sister that stretched to all of the children in his care. 

“Yes, Hannibal.” Will answered the question he had been asked so long before. “Yes, I will help you kill Verger.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal guides Will to his becoming...

Hannibal had explained that beyond the central streets of the town it faded - the replica was not complete. Just enough to fool children for whom so little time had passed. In this reality where Will Graham’s house - his father’s house - stood was just nothing. Empty. It seemed sort of fitting, considering the amount of times he’d wanted to pull the place down. He had lead Will back to the woods and towards the land that should be the Lecter Estate - there, Hannibal had explained - was where he had thinned the wall between the worlds. Not a dreamstate - as it felt - but another world. One only the fae could open.

The woods had seemed to expand and contract around them now that Will felt more aware of the effect. Back in the real world the snow had stopped but the sky was so clouded with grey it was hard to know the time of day. Layers of thick snow crunched beneath their feet and they had to avoid several drifts. The shelter of the trees meant it was less here - he knew the town would be snowed in. He wondered whether the salting and ploughing was put into action - keeping clear the road and bridge out of town. It seemed like such a distant concern in the circumstance.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed by the time they were back next to his truck. Winston was curled up asleep in the footwell with a blanket he’d pulled off the sear. It suddenly felt so strangely normal. Life. If his life had ever been normal. 

The reverie last exactly as long as it had taken for him to look in and see Winston was safe. 

Then, in short order, he heard a strange rustling noise at the same time his radio sparked back into life. 

“Will, Will! Are you there, please goddam it!” He woke Winston as he opened the door to grab for the C.B. Before he’d had chance to answer Bryony’s call the rustling became a scrabbling. A cacophony of noise drowning out any further words Bryony spoke. 

Hannibal had not seemed at all phased as Will realised the ground was moving. The snow shifting and pulsating until the cause became clear. The large, plump rats hurtled past them. The snow was left a mess by thousands of tiny feet. They swarmed over Will and Hannibal’s feet, weaving in and out. It took minutes on end for the bulk of the rats to retreat - which was clearly what they were doing - leaving no little destruction in their wake. 

Will had turned to Hannibal - “You called them off?” No longer any doubt in his mind about the connection between the infestation twentyfive years earlier and Hannibal. It had been a simple thing really - resolve something you caused in return for what you want. A manipulation, but one that would have been necessary in order to pursue justice, and even then it didn’t work. 

“Called them off? Not exactly. They only have one target now. They will lead us to Mason Verger.”

Will nodded and got into his vehicle, inviting Hannibal to do the same. They waited for the stream of rats to thin before he started to drive after them, trying not to run any of them over as they scrabbled at a speed he couldn’t fathom. 

They devastated everything in their path, blazing a trail to the Verger Estate, relative neighbours of the Lecter Estate.

“I didn’t think Mason Verger lived here anymore…” Will commented. 

“Perhaps visiting?” Hannibal responded as they pulled up the drive to find a very expensive car haphazardly parked, the drivers door open. Some of the rats swarmed into it and began destroying the interior. 

Will didn’t need years as a Deputy to tell him something was very amiss at this place, regardless of the current circumstance of heavy snow fall and rampaging rats. He drew his sidearm as they approached the house carefully - trying to avoid the rats that still moved in waves across the snow - and noticed the side on look Hannibal gave him.

“Not a very intimate method.” Hannibal commented, nodding at his sidearm.

Will raised his brow. “I don’t require intimacy in the protection of myself and others.” The knowing smile he received in return sent a tremor through him. They had reached the steps up to the house then so that pulled his focus entirely. 

The front door was wide open, a small snow drift having built up just inside and the rats went no further - surging up to but not through the door itself as though caught on a tide. The door wasn’t just open, but hanging strangely. It was a large door but it had clearly been forced and now the hinges were threatening to give out. 

Will took in the door and then spared no further thought - a forced entry was all he needed to know. He flicked off the safety and was prepared to cock it, ready for anything. He hoped. He carried on cautiously into the house, not calling out for the residents, ever alert. He could feel Hannibal behind him, though the man seemed to move with much less caution.

They were nearing the end other side of the large and ornately decorated foyer when they heard it.

Will was almost completely certain that it wasn’t the blood curdling scream that drew the man, but the maniacal laughter that followed it. 

Hannibal strode passed him then, towards the back of the house, into a hallway leading to the kitchens. Will followed whilst trying to remain as alert as possible and wondering whether or not he should tell Hannibal to get back behind him. The man was unarmed and they had no idea what they were walking into, but equally - Hannibal was the most powerful person Will had ever met, it surged off of him - even more so in this moment. 

The scene in the kitchen was a desperate one.

Mason Verger, who appeared to be in his pyjamas and a smoking jacket, stood at the far side of the kitchen with a dark haired woman in his grasp. He had her held tight around the waist and had a knife pressed to her throat, a small line of blood already erupting through the skin. 

“Mason, I swear…” Another woman, older and surely Margot Verger, stood this side of a breakfast bar.

“Now now Margot. Look we have guests, and you know father would never have approved of you keeping your whore here with you. In his house Margot!” There was a mock indignation there and he didn’t miss a beat as his eyes flicked between Will and Hannibal as they entered the room. 

Will kept his gun leveled, aimed squarely at the man and his human shield. “Let the woman go Verger.”

Will had not been sure what to expect upon meeting the man, but this situation had pushed him quickly back into Deputy mode and he was reminded of having to kill Hobbs. He’d _had_ to do that then. He had to do this now. 

His request was met with more maniacal laughter. 

“He’s mad. He’s fucking insane!” Margot raged, a hint of terror in there along with the anger.

He sneered at her and lowered the knife from the woman’s throat to her belly. “Don’t think I don’t know about this, Margot! Trying to replace our little family? What would father say?” The words were spat angrily before he switched back again to a tone Will could only gauge as deeply crazy - “He’d say you should have been born with a penis!” Mason let out a burst of the crazed laughter again. “Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Who made this one for you, hmm? Some filthy homosexual friend? Did you let him fuck her Margot? Did dear Alana get to feel the touch of a man? I bet she loved it. I’d have fucked her if you’d asked, held her down and made her feel a real Verger, put a real Verger inside her.” He grinned sickeningly and then licked his tongue, flatly up the side of the woman’s face. 

The woman - Alana’s - expression waivered from reliance to terror. 

If he’d had a clean shot then, Will would have taken it.

He saw Margot’s knuckles grow white as she clutched at the bench. She was biting her tongue with eyes completely focused on the knife that Mason was now swirling gently over the woman’s barely rounded belly.

There seemed a stillness in the air - no one wanted to cause a ripple that might result in devastation. After a few moments Hannibal stepped forward, moving around Will and Margot and towards Mason who seemed too surprised and amused to act. 

“Now Mason, this is quite unnecessary. Let your sister and her partner leave and we will discuss this situation like adults.”

Mason barked a laugh at that, but clearly he recognised Hannibal. 

“I knew it was you. These rodents, just like last time. People thought I was mad, I told them it was you back then and they didn’t believe me!” 

“You appear to be correct.” Hannibal smiled gently as though talking to a child, “Why your response to my presence has been to come here, I don’t know, but we should talk - without the ladies present.” 

Mason looked like he was considering it for a moment and then spat back angrily - “I’m here because this is my home. This is where I belong. If you’re going to come and try to take me, like you took the children, then you are mistaken. I am staying here. You can take these bitches instead. Take Margot if it’s Vergers you want. Or this little one if it’s children you want.”

He pressed the knife a little to Alana’s belly and she let out a strangled sob.

Will already knew from rumour that Mason was crazy And now the proof was before him as the man then began to rant nonsensically about reclaiming his birthright. Perhaps he hoped his father would rise from the dead to protect him again. 

Given the last couple of days Will wondered whether that might actually happen. And still had absolute faith that Hannibal would triumph. 

Mason continued to babble, his words meaning nothing and a mixture of rage and fear threading through his tone as his eyes remained fixed on Hannibal.

Finally he said something that made sense, and sent a chill running through Will -

“If it’s revenge you want then take it.” The man screamed. “Take Margot, she’s as sweet as chocolate. Succulent.” His face cracked into a wide grin. 

Hannibal’s reaction was so fast that Will barely registered it. He went from standing beyond arm’s length to in front of Mason in the blink of an eye, taking the hand that held the knife and snapping it back with such force that the sound of bones breaking echoed around the room. 

Alana let out a sob as she used the opportunity to escape his grasp. She damn near fell into Will’s arms, being the closest other than Hannibal. He holstered his gun and held her up, moving her over to Margot who took hold of the woman immediately as she regained composure. 

Hannibal still had Mason’s arm twisting in his hand, Mason sinking to his knees under the pain of it. 

“Ms Verger, many years ago your father protected your brother from paying for a crime. I do not think you are a stranger to his abuses. So perhaps I don’t need to ask this… Are you going to side with your father here and protect him, or can we presume that you are happy for him to finally pay for his crimes. All of his crimes.” 

Hannibal’s words weren’t cold but his eyes were, and Margot met them with a stern gaze, holding her lover to her as she sneered - “Do what you like with him, as long as it’s painful, and as long as he ends up dead.” 

Mason poured forth a mixture of more maniacal laughter and pleas for mercy as Margot helped her partner from the room without a backward glance. 

“Marrrr-gooooot” Verger sing-songed her name as he tried to call her back. “You can’t leave me! I won’t let you!” 

The door to the kitchen closed with a click that echoed off the walls. 

*

Maybe that music had been playing quietly the whole time but Will only really noticed it when the sound in the kitchen was reduced to just Mason’s erratic and slightly menacing breathing. He could feel, rather than hear, that Hannibal was the source. A melodic tune so familiar to him from his youth and in his dreams - the winter lullaby used to lure the children through the snow. It vibrated off of the man.

Mason threw his hands over his ears once he registered it, and started near screaming - “la la la, can’t hear you!”

Hannibal’s grin was menacing and Will wondered if he should be terrified. Because one thing was clear, he was not needed here - Hannibal had sought justice for his sister through the townsfolk and resorted to taking the children. Now he resorted to physical revenge and it was oh, so very clear - he did not need any help from Will. He knew it already of course, but he thought that his desired presence would become clear.

“Why am I here?” Will asked. His eyes on Mason’s antics, though Hannibal haunted his periphery. It seemed that Mason was rooted to the spot whether he knew it or not, he danced from foot to foot but never out of a small area. That was the music, Will knew, he could feel that from Hannibal too - understand what it was to be fae, the power they could have. 

The lights went out. 

The dim glow through the large kitchen windows and patio door gave an eerie aspect but little illumination. And yet it was enough to see the dark shadow cast across Hannibal - distorting his form… 

He stood taller, skin as black as night and head crowned with antlers. 

So familiar to Will. He had seen him before like this. In dreams where he had been left behind, abandoned by that retreating figure leading the children away. Hannibal’s true self that Will had seen that day and not understood, not believed. 

“You don’t need my help.” Will stated, Hannibal’s form wavering between the two as the light ebbed and waned with the movement of clouds outside. 

“No.” The smile was soft, it should be strange on such a face but wasn’t. Not to Will. “If I was to return for you Will, no matter whether you believed a word I said, I knew you would believe one thing - your own becoming.”

_Never fear what you might become, sweetheart._

Will shivered as his mother’s words echoed in his head. Had she known? Had she instinctively understood something of their nature? 

“Becoming… Become what?” Will wondered aloud and turned his entire focus on Hannibal - his subtly shifting form. 

“Your true self.” Hannibal said gently.

Mason continued to hop about, but it was no distraction, almost like he wasn’t there at all behind that wall of music that was growing louder and louder. 

“A killer?” Will asked, remembering Hobbs, remembering how that had felt. Powerful, alive. Righteous and victorious.

“I know that you’ve killed before Will. How did that feel? Did you like it? Did you feel bad? Or did you feel bad because killing him felt so good?”

Will thought he would have to consider such a question and yet the answer was immediately on his lips - “I liked killing Hobbs.”

Hannibal’s smile was knowing. “Killing must feel good to God, too. He does it all the time, and are we not created in God's image? Us more so than most.”

Will quirked a brow at him. “Are you saying the Fae are Gods Hannibal?” 

“Our blood is holy.” Hannibal’s words were almost dismissive.

“So we are… created in God’s image.” Will agreed then. 

“God's terrific.” Hannibal smirked, looking over at Mason who Will now realised was in fact dancing - against his will. He was almost to the point of exhaustion and looked both terrified and manic. “He dropped a church roof on 34 of his worshippers last Wednesday night in Texas, while they sang a hymn.”

“Did God feel good about that?” Will asked, watching the enjoyment burst across Hannibal’s face as Mason looked on the verge to dance himself to death.

“He felt powerful.” 

Hannibal’s voice was a rumble within his melody and the music stopped. His face cold and stern as Mason stopped too, dropping to the floor.

With the music gone Will could hear him again now, panting and sobbing. 

“So… I have to kill.” Will stated it and found a sort of truth in it, already knowing it was more than that. “To become, I have to kill.”

“He deserves to die.” Hannibal replied with a trace of venom in those words. 

Will couldn’t disagree. He’d killed Hobbs for less, it felt. He looked down at Mason, who was sobbing and laughing and just seemed such a pitiful creature. Will wondered how no one had killed him before. But now, Daddy Verger was gone...

“It’s about power.” Will said.

“It’s about becoming. Realising that power.” Hannibal spoke in such a way that made Will realise he had no doubt that Will would help kill Mason as they had agreed, regardless. “You have been stuck in this Wolf Trap, Will. You have adapted to this environment instead of the one meant for us. There is an evil in this place that perhaps drew my family, drew yours - that will end tonight. The end of this Verger line.” At that the air around them stilled and it was like that dream place, the air thick and blossom floating as though in water, it made Will a little dizzy. “It;s about evolving. You must evolve, become.”

“Or I… can’t be with you.” Will realised aloud. Hannibal’s gentle smile confirmed it. 

“When I go… where I go, it is like this. It will affect you poorly should you not become what your blood insists you must.” 

Will felt his chest ache. A realisation he had already made - he wanted to go with Hannibal. He always had. For twentyfive years he had. 

Hannibal grabbed Mason by the scruff and pulled him bodily from the floor. Mason let out a squeal of terror, but seemed unable to move in this thick haze.

“Do you know how the Verger’s made their fortune, Will? They were pig farmers. For generations they reared and slaughtered pigs, their money made them important in this town. Wealth bought them status and position. They became powerful the way evil men do. But at the end of the day they are merely pig farmers,” Hannibal reached into his pocket with a sneer - seemingly repulsed by the knife he had pocketed from Mason before.

It looked old and well-used. 

“For testing the fat, yes?” He asked Mason as he pulled the knife free and opened it in one hand. The other still holding fast on the whimpering man. 

Will watched as he slowly slid the sharp blade into Mason’s thigh. The man’s scream was stolen by the thick haze - as though he was underwater. It went in as though easing into butter.

Hannibal’s face betrayed no emotion and Will found himself saying - “This man butchered your family.”

At that Hannibal twisted the blade as he withdrew it, agony shooting through his expression whilst Mason near crumpled in on himself.

Will pulled his hunting knife from his belt and moved forward until Mason was essentially pressed between them. 

“They slice the throat of pigs, hang them to drain them. Slice their bellies and let the entrails fall out.” Will mused dispassionately.

Hannibal’s lips tweaked into a small smile and he raised Mason’s knife to its owner’s throat. The thickness dropped from the air then, reality resuming and Mason’s screams loud and panicked filled the space around them along with the scent of urine.

Will could have been startled but wasn’t. He pressed his own knife to Mason’s belly, as Verger had done with the woman earlier. 

“For Mischa.” Hannibal growled and drew the knife violently across Mason’s throat. Will pulled back and plunged the knife through the layers of cloth, skin and fat - into the man’s gut. Rending him. 

Mason’s mouth fell into a soundless scream as blood sprayed from his throat, washing over Will even as the man’s entrails fell at his feet. 

“This is how man used to sacrifice to the Gods.” Hannibal bit out the words. 

He released Mason and the man dropped lifeless to the floor into his own waste, blood and viscera still oozing from him. 

There was an absolute silence. The music gone, the scurrying sound of rats gone. Not even the sound of breathing in the room as they studied each other over Mason’s body. 

And then Will closed his eyes and brought it all back. 

He could feel it. The power. His connection not just to Hannibal but to everything - to life itself. He opened his eyes and the air thickened, the haze returned with no ill-effect to him. He looked at Hannibal and saw his antlered form, knowing that he himself reflected it. The music had resumed, but it wasn’t the same. It was a lullaby his mother had sung him as a child. Will knew in that moment that it was him creating this, the music was coming from him. He had that power.

He could see it all - feel it. Surging around them both with little effort from him, just a gentle guide to this other world that he had always belonged to. It seemed different than before. It felt like truth. He understood it now.

“You felt this power once before.” Hannibal told him, as though reading his mind. “But you didn’t understand it then. You do now. You can harness it now.” 

Hannibal was a man again as he stepped towards Will and took his hand. Will was panting then, breathless at his own power, he trembled and let Hannibal pull them together. Blood pooling around their feet as they embraced.

“This is all I ever wanted for you Will, for both of us.” Hannibal murmured against his cheek.

“It’s beautiful.” choked out, overwhelmed.

He trembled further, breathing heavily as he turned his head and found Hannibal’s lips with his own, tasting at first delight then hesitation, and then surrender set against the metallic taste of blood.

*

They had left Margot Verger and Alana Bloom standing outside the Verger Mansion, surrounded by the devastation of the rats, with instructions on where to find the children. 

Hannibal had lifted the veil of that place and now they would be found sleeping soundly in a warm clearing in the woods, having barely aged in the twentyfive years they had been gone. 

Will had felt an obligation at that - that he should stay and help with the children. Help find those families that had moved away. But he knew he didn’t belong in this place any more, not now that he saw the world as Hannibal did - as he was always truly meant to. Maybe it was a fair exchange - the one remaining child from that night for the return of all the others. 

And it wasn’t a hardship. Perhaps he might have hesitated a moment had Jack still been alive - he would have owed the man more than to simply vanish. But Bella would be fine without him, the Sheriff’s department would manage. Though it was all moot, Will realised, as they drove from the town. The snow was falling heavily again and within the hour the town was sure to be cut off through Christmas and likely into the New Year. Jack had been right to be worried - the salt had not been laid and soon the bridge wouldn’t be passable. The children would be found and cared for, the town would come together and they would all cope, until the roads opened up again. 

As they had departed, he had this strange sense - not so much a premonition but an sense of what was to come. He had always been able to feel what others felt, but this was more. A pendulum passed through his vision and he could see clearly what lay ahead. He could see Margot Verger razing the Verger Estate to the ground - burning everything that was left of the Verger family legacy until all that remained was herself and the family she protected. He saw families reuniting, acting as a balm for the wound left by Jack’s passing. He felt the darkness that had always seemed to have a stranglehold on the town, start to lift.

As they cleared the bridge, Will came back to himself and looked in the rearview mirror as if for some confirmation. And perhaps it was that the perpetual fog that seemed to always surrounded the town was gone. It looked brighter, and with all the snow, it looked like a Christmas card. It felt like they had freed the place from an evil that had lived there, toxic and insidious. 

Will looked over at Hannibal. Winston sat between them, tongue lolling as he took in the road ahead. Hannibal looked so composed, as though completely unphased by everything that had passed. And perhaps he was to an extent - he was well travelled, well educated. Will had barely even left the county before and now he was on his way to a place far beyond the Europe he knew from books and TV. Even so, Will knew that the composure was in part a ruse - he could see through that now. He could see everything about Hannibal.

This man, this fae, that was going to take him back to his roots, teach him more about his true self. This man who was so powerful and self assured. Will could see the cracks he caused in him, chinks glowing through the man’s armour at his very existence. With Will he was the weakest man in the world, and Will already knew the same was true of him. 

He leaned over and took hold of Hannibal’s hand, drawing it across until Hannibal shuffled - Winston half across his lap - so that Will could rest their linked hands on his own thigh. Hannibal laced their fingers together and Will looked across at him again.

Hannibal was smiling in a way that Will already knew he hadn’t since childhood. 

Will felt powerful.


End file.
